Nope - its in a row of garages with no access other than the front door, so I only need to secure the up and over door.
There is also a large perspex window above that may need some metal meshing/bars behind it to prevent unwanted entry....
On the old forum this topic was discussed, and someone listed a form of cap gun, that used shotgun type cartridges, but obviously without the shot balls. Apparently it's quite legal. Makes one hell of a noise when it goes off. Anyone remember what it was?
RobS - The garage door defender should do the job nicely, I see your lucky enough to be living in one of my favourite towns too. Your not worried about those monks are you? 🙂
I actually have one of those shotgun traps sat in a toolbox, do you need a shotgun cert to buy blanks these days?
Thought you didn't as long as they didn't have shot in them. The blanks were very small, only about 3/4 inch long, so can't have had too much in them, but with elfinsafety boys these days who knows.
While I agree prevention at source is probably best, it's also wise to upload all your bike details (and anything else) to Immobilise.
[url= http://www.immobilise.com/index.php ]Clicky[/url]
I haven't read through the whole thread so don't know where your garage is in relation to your home. But one thing I can recommend (from experience) is mechanically enabling the door to only be opened from inside, i.e preventing the door from being opened from outside. Useful if you can only enter your garage from a side-door in your house. Also depends what access you need day to day, etc. But certainly worth looking at for times when you're away or at least overnight.
SM
Yeah - it's not to bad around here Haddock... but you got to watch them Monks, dodgy bunch they are 😉
(I shouldn't say that given that I do some work for em!)
Think I will probably just go with the garage defender option for the time being, and add ground anchors later if I get jittery!
Aristole - That may be good advice in a rural area but in a city you see scroats every few seconds
I know, as I live in one too.
Go with your 'gut instinct'(not actually instinct, but learned through experience)
It's less hassle to occasionally drive a convoluted route home than to have your car/bike stolen though. I no longer have a fast car and my bikes are now fairly old, so I'm hoping that nobody nicks them.
[i]double glazed windows and double glazed frecnh doors[/i]
IME (burgled the house at 3 am with us all in) french doors are sh1te. Make sure you have very beefy handles and "snap safe" euro locks at least. Cast handles and standard locks were worse than useless when the scrotes broke in using only a screwdriver and mole grips. Insanely easy. Dog was toss all use as well, just didn't like the draft and came upstairs to sleep on the landing.
IME UPVC double glazing can be pretty poor as well. Next doors side window was jemmied open at the same time. Better steel mesh / grill fixed into the wall on the inside. Old sheet over the window so they can't see in.
Screws are crap fixings in comparison to coach bolts but it all depends on how you can fix things, the surrouding structure etc.
Just invested in one of the 11mm Pragmasis chains plus a closed shackle lock. Just shy of £140 for 5m (boggelingly expensive but still cheaper than the cheapest frame). There's two timber beams stopping the up and over door opening and all the bikes hanging from hooks off them. Seven of them chained together with 5m of hardened steel is about as far as I am prepared to go.
Security is only any good if you use it. If it's too time-consuming or awkward then you're less likely to bother with it. Plus, whilst I don't want to gift it to the thieving sh1ts I don't want to live in Fort Knox and have it dictate my life.
Saying that there are now 3 mortice locks on the garage side door and I intend to metal plate / grill / mesh the inside of it so they can't just kick it through. That and said chain should be enough I hope. No ground anchor but with the chain through both frame triangles I doubt they'll bother cutting the frames to free them. All of the bikes chained together should be an absolute 'mare to get them out through the door.
Having had my garage done over a few months back, here are my thoughts:
If any doors open outwards, fit hinge bolts to stop them lifting the hinges. Reinforce the door frame as well as the door itself. Use decent length frame fixings all around the frames. My door wasn't actually opened. They actually stripped the wooden board facing off the front face instead and went through it. Make sure the doors are tough in this respect. My alarm never went off because the door contacts were not moved by their entry method. I now have an additional PIR fitted.
All bikes were chained inside except two which had thick cable locks. Guess which were taken. The cables didn't last a second by the looks of them. The chained bikes were left but they stole forks, wheels etc off them. Don't leave your tools unlocked with the bikes. They used my own stuff to dismantle and then took the tools as well.
I've reinforced, improved locks and alarm etc etc. Still expecting a return from the scrotes for the insurance replacements. Will see how it fairs next time! To all those who say 'I've got insurance'. All well and good, but it's a royal PITA sorting it all out and getting everything back how you want it. Some things can't be replaced easily. M&S were very good, but keep receipts for everything is my advice!
air mine
you seek air mine...
boom... parp
having had both my motorbikes nicked at the same time via the follow you home trick, i was gutted and lost out as both were not insured at that time.since then ive looked at the whole aspect from a different angle. once bitten twice shy and all that.people talk about inconvenience but ensentially a bank vault will only have one "key" your shed/ garage can be like fort knox and its only the key holder that can get in.
problem comes when you loose the key... 😆
this is an interesting thread as I bought a house with a garage and completed on it a few weeks ago, once the builders finish we're moving in in the new year.. and the garage is nice and big but pretty unsecured ... so I need to get it sorted before I move the fleet in.
I like to hang my bikes off the wall and keep space on the floors... is there a bike hanger which has ground anchors (in my case into the bricks of the wall) and that materially includes a D-lock to the frame. If not can we invent one?
oh and tons idea of matal mesh under the roof is good.thats how they got into my garage.levered up the roof sheeting and climbed in.flicked the door unlocked from the inside and bingo.
neighbours right beside it said "oh yeah we did hear a banging noise!"
cheers.
[url= http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/how-to-toughen-up-your-bike-shed-part-2-21414 ]locks and ground anchors[/url]this article on bike radar seems a good starting point generally:
RobS - The only way to get around a well fitted door defender is to bend the corner of the door outwards, this does happen though. The bottom of the door can be braced with a steel strip to add strength. As someone put above the more you have to stop them the better. I'm up in the Cartmel valley a fair bit, is there much good riding towards Bank House moor and Lowick high common?
[url=
of these[/url]
Wonder if I could use my work expertise to fit a decent sized, automated co2 extinguisher system, and tie this in my alarm panel. You know, for fires... Not for gassing scumbags
[i]You know, for fires... Not for gassing scumbags [/i]
I used to work at an industrial chemical plant and all the fume cupboards were fitted with a [url= http://www.firetrace.co.uk/ ]FireTrace system[/url]
It used a metal funnel mounted in the roof of the fume hood to detect heat which melted a wax partition and caused a pressure drop in the system which automatically released an entire gas cylinder of CO2 in less than 2 seconds. It can be set up with various trigger methods. It was very impressive in action and the bigger ones will render a person unconscious very quickly. If you have it installed, tell your insurance company cos it'll cut your house insurance costs by a fair bit having a decent fire prevention system like that in a hazardous environment. But it's not for gassing scumbags, oh no.
Like it Crazy Legs.
I've mentioned this before but I knew a farmer (not Tony Martin) who'd been done a few times & he rigged up an old shotgun with 2 cartridges filled with rice, bit of a Heath Robinson affair actually, but it went off one night & funnily enough he never had any more bother. This was in the early 80's mind, probly wouldn't dare nowadays.
Can ground anchors be attached to bricks instead of concrete? I will be hanging my bikes off wall hooks thar you slot a wheel into and want the ground anchors close for d locks. So I fancy I'll need the anchor on the garage wall made of brick... Anybody know?
Interesting thread...I have recently had my garage cleaned out twice, the second time for the insurance replacement bike.
Just to echo what other people are saying I have gone for:
1. Torc ground anchor/chain & lock
2. Another ground anchor outside to hold my roller shutter garage door down.
3. An alarm rigged up to the house & a PIR floodlight.
I reckon I'm due another visit from the toerags in a couple of months so we'll see how it gets on!
Can ground anchors be attached to bricks instead of concrete?
Joe, You can fit them to a wall just as easily as a concrete floor. I've got one on the wall where my road bikes hang up. I had some reservations about it being as strong as the floor mounted pair, but it's every bit as strong. You would have to knock the bricks out to remove it.
You can fit them to a wall just as easily as a concrete floor. I've got one on the wall where my road bikes hang up. I had some reservations about it being as strong as the floor mounted pair, but it's every bit as strong. You would have to knock the bricks out to remove it.
cheers paul, I suspected that was the case. Interestingly I have found that the guys who do the TORC anchors do a specific kit for brick walls rather than concrete, they say that brick is typically a weaker anchor substrate than concrete so they vary the fixing kit to allow for a stronger joint. Think I'll be ordering four of their anchors soon... just need to figure out how to lock them to the bikes hanging on the wall. Dont want heavy chains. Think it'll be x4 Kryptonite NY locks. Am investigating it i can get them key alike.
crikey i'm a bit parnoid now - but i'm renting so theres nowt i can do other than get insurance!!
at least my bikes aren't ridiculously pricey and don't look too flashy.
Bushwacked - I'd be interested in any security packages you Mrs might be able to come up with. You don't have an email address in you profile though.
The best security measure we could all take is to stop buying cheap parts off ebay and on the classifieds unless we are completely happy that the source of them is kosher.
Ride a Harley? Drive a VW camper or other old classic? Perhaps a Land Rover? Or are you a mountain biker? These hobbies all have two things in common:
Customisation is common.
Theft is rife.
It fuels itself. Whilever there's a demand for cheap second-hand kit, our kit will go missing to supply it. Scrotes aren't stealing our bikes to use themselves (though I did see a spotty spliff smoking chav on a 5 spot the other week) - they're stealing them to sell.
Ebay and internet classifieds pages are a dream come true for the scrotes. Yes, a lot of bikes get stolen and sold for a few quid down the local, but ones like those mentioned here aren't being nicked from the train station or from outside the uni campus on a whim by an opportunist. They're being specifically targetted.
If we all stopped buying cheap second hand kit unless we were 100% positive that the source was totally pukka, we wouldn't need all these ground anchors, chains, alarms and insurance, and we wouldn't have threads like this.
The whole thing irritates me beyond belief.
Kill ebay and make internet classified pages available only to those with high post counts and those who can be vouched for by others. That would go some way to stopping it.
But no. People like a bargain when they're shopping for their American classic and XTR shod titanium hardtails.
/rant
Blank Shotgun cartridge/ Alarm Mine + wired alarm to the house?
[url= http://www.defensedevices.com/shotgun-alarm-signal1.html ][img] http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/urdefense_2081_22725327 [/img][/url]
